Can We Ever Take a 3rd Party Run Seriously?

With all the talk these days about third-party candidacies—and fourth-party candidacies, if you count Michael Bloomberg's ecdysiastical musings—there has been a corresponding chorus of sad trombones regarding how terribly awful politics are, and how they always manage to obstruct "real solutions" to our many problems. You know that this maundering is getting serious when St. Ralph checks in.

The biggest variable Bloomberg faces is whether the two parties will nominate candidates he considers to be polarizing figures representing the extremes of each party: Donald Trump—or worse, Ted Cruz—and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Yeah, that'd be tragic. Save us, Mike Bloomberg. You're our only hope. Of course, these concerns are not without historical precedents.

[ ] …are statesmen of integrity and large experience in every branch of the Government, who has gone through what they have, and come forth with characters more unblemished ? They stand up before their countrymen in the purity of their reputations, unquestioned and unassailed, as moderators, mediators, peace-makers. Their triumph would be, not that of a party, nor over a party. They would have no proscription or vengeance to inflict upon any. Their triumph would be the triumph, and the security of us all. The mere fact of the election of [] would be a great calamity, though it should not create resistance to the Government. Personally, he is very probably upright, honest and worthy … [] might be impelled by fanatical clamor to go further than his party has yet gone.

If you're keeping score at home, the speaker is John Crittenden of the Constitutional Union Party. The year is 1860 and Crittenden is arguing to push the uncomfortable issue of slavery down the road once again. The "statesmen of great integrity" are John Bell and Edward Everett, the CUP's national ticket in that year's election. The man whose election would be "a great calamity" was the Republican nominee, a gawky Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.

We have problems in this country with how we have chosen to govern ourselves. The only solution to most of them are rigorous, involved, and occasionally raucous politics. That may disturb the sweet slumbers of those who dream of narcotic solutions, but it's the only tool we have.

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